38 pos of this, let me tell you something that I know will tickle you: My cousins, the -s, are infuriated at me. They take the old harridan stepmother as an insult aimed at their mother-all because of the name! Can you beat it! I've tried to explain that every city directory is pretty full of -s, but it's no use." " Th S " d 0 e traw cause more excItement in New London than it did in New York, where it folded after a run of only a few weeks. "Chris Christopher- son," produced the year before, had done even worse. It opened in At- lantic City on March 8, 1920, and closed almost immediately. New York didn't see it until over a year later, after it had been rewritten. It was then pre- sented by Arthur Hopkins as "Anna Christie." Meanwhile, "The Emperor J ones" had been successfully launched, d h 1 1 " D o ff ' " an two ot er ong pays, 1 rent and "Gold," put on by, respectively, the Provincetown Players and John D. Williams, had failed. "Anna Christie," too, had its bas-is in O'Neill's experience. Its first act was laid in a saloon modelled on the old Fulton Street hangout known as Jimmy the Priest's, over which O'Neill lived for a few months during his seafaring days, and the original of Anna's father had been a roommate of O'Neill's there. "He had followed the sea so long," O'Neill recalls today, "that he got sick at the thought of it. , ': ,....... . '" 6- __ .. , ',. t .II" ... ' ,." \ ---=- \ \ \ - ' \ \ \ \ , \ \ -o..;;tX. , \. I I \. t \ \\ \ I \ ,\ \. \ , \ \\, \ l f " Th S " d "r [J F . " 1 " o e traw an 1e ITSt v an, also a faIlure. Then, in :Vlarch, 1 922, O'Neill had another s111ash hit, which overshadowed even "The Emperor J "" B 1 . " O ' N . 11 h d ones. e leve me, 1 el a written to an associate among the Prov- incetowners, "it's going to be strong stuff, with a kick in each mitt and stuff done in a new way, along the lines of 'Emperor Jones' in construction but even more so." The play, which was put on at the Playwrights' Theatre, with settings by Robert Edmond Jones, was "rrhe Hairy Ape." Louis \V olheinl played the leading role, that of Yank, a powerful, primitive stoker . Yank, called a "filthy beast" by a society girl w:ho is a passenger en the ship, con1es to feel that he doesn't belong to the human race. He goes to New York, is arrested for creating a disturhance and manhandled by the police, tries to join the I. ""T.W. and is thrown out of their headquarters ("So dem boids don't tink I belong, neider"), and ends up early one morning in the deserted monkey house of the zoo, where he jimmies one of the cages, frees a gorilla ("Step out and shake hands. . . . COlne on, broth- er"), and is crushed to death by the o 1 " E h ." h k anIma. ven 1m, t e sto er says as he dies, "didn't tink I belonged." "The Hairy Ape" got enthusiastic notices. Once more, Alexander \V 0011- cott was enraptured. "A turbulent and tremendous play," he wrote. It didn't require much courage for Ar- thur Hopkins to take " Th H . A " over e aIry pe and bring it to Broad way five weeks after jt opened on Macdougal Street. It had a run of ten weeks, went on the road for a long tour, became as popular abroad as "The Em- peror Jones," and was . finally made into a mo- tion picture, five years ago, with \\Tillia'm Ben- dix playing the role created by W olheim. The role of the society girl, in the original pro- duction, was played by Carlotta Monterey, one of the dazzling beauties of the twenties, who is the present :\1rs. O'N eilL The stoker in "The Hairy Ape" was lnod- elled on one of O'Neill's shipmates. This man, When I knew him, he was on the beach, a real down-and-outer. He wouldn't ship out, although it was the only work he knew, and he spent his time getting drunk and cursing the sea. 'Dat ole davil,' he called it. Finally he got a job as captain of a coal barge. He got ter- ribly drunk down at Jimmy's one Christmas Eve and reeled off at about two o'clock in the morning for his 0....; barge. On Christmas morning he was found in the river, frozen to death. He h f 11 ." " A Ch . . " must ave a en In. ! nna nstle, with Pauline Lord in the title role, turned -out to be one of O'Neill's most popular plays. It ran for a hundred and seventy-seven performances in e'v York, won him his second Pulitzer Prize, and was Seen shortly thereafter in the silent movies, with Blanche Sweet as the prostitute, the only one of O'l"eill's heroines who figures in a rea- sonably happy ending. It was later made into a more historic film, in which Greta Garbo's voice was recorded on a sound track for the first time. "Garbo Talks!" the advertisements said. "Anna Christie" was produced in lnanr other countries. For three performances of it given in Berlin in the inflationary SUlnmer of 1923, O'Neill received 7,840,000,000 marks. In American currency, it amounted to a dollar and thirty-nine cents. Next came the brief New )York run , I I I ,,1 \ \ 1\\\'\\' I";,.", \ ,\ \ . I , " \